Due to ongoing travel restrictions, Swiss International Air Lines doesn’t expect air travel demand to recover before mid-summer 2021. Therefore, the airline’s second quarter schedule will be less than planned, increasing to 65 percent of 2019 operations by Q3.
On Thursday (February 25, 2021), Swiss International Air Lines announced that due to ongoing travel restrictions, the carrier will operate a reduced schedule during the second quarter, gradually increasing to approximately 65 percent of 2019 operations by mid-summer 2021. SWISS will offer a total of 85 destinations from Zurich and 43 from Geneva in their summer schedule, with a focus on travelers visiting friends and relatives (VFR) and leisure destinations. The airline will also be introducing new service from Zurich to Tallinn (Estonia) and Billund (Denmark) and from Geneva to Santorini (Greece), Split (Croatia) and Funchal/Madeira (Portugal).
In Thursday’s announcement, SWISS’ Chief Commercial officer, Tamur Goudarzi Pour, said,
“With the tighter travel restrictions in response to high infection rates, we have again had to tangibly reduce our service offer. We won’t be substantially expanding it again until the summer travel season. But when we do so, we’ll be putting a clear focus on leisure travellers and on customers visiting friends and relatives, as the business travel segment will take longer to return.”
As previously mentioned, SWISS is launching new service from Zurich to Tallinn and Billund. From June 25, 2021, the carrier will offer two weekly flights to Tallinn, the capital of Estonia on the Baltic sea. Starting July 2nd, SWISS will offer twice-weekly flights to Billund in Denmark, which is also the home of the world-famous Lego company and its Legoland theme park.
During summer 2021, SWISS will also restore various European and intercontinental routes from Zurich, which are currently suspended. The Zurich-Miami route will be restored from March 28th, with up to five weekly frequencies, while Zurich-Boston flights will restart on May 1st, with up to seven weekly flights. Starting May 2nd, SWISS will also resume flights between Zurich and Los Angeles, with up to five weekly flights and from July 1st, the carrier will offer up to four weekly flights to Cairo.
SWISS’ short-haul network from Zurich will see the resumption of flights to Niš in Southern Serbia and to Sarajevo with up to two weekly flights to each destination from April 1st. Zurich travelers will also once again enjoy direct service to London City, with up to 12 weekly flights from May 12th, as well as up to five weekly flights to Bordeaux starting June 18, 2021. Additionally, SWISS will offer up to six daily flights to Berlin and up to three daily flights to Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca, Hamburg, Vienna, Copenhagen and Athens. Customers will also enjoy up to 11 weekly flights to Naples, and nine to Thessaloniki.
As previously announced, SWISS will continue to maintain a minimal flight program from Geneva through March. However, Geneva remains a key operating location in the company’s network and three new destinations will be added to the summer schedule. Starting June 19th, SWISS will operate two weekly nonstop flights between Geneva and Santorini, with twice-weekly service to Split in Southern Croatia starting on July 2nd. Weekly flights between Geneva and Funchal on the Portuguese Island of Madeira will also launch on September 4, 2021. The most flight frequencies from Geneva this summer will include service to London-Heathrow, Athens, Porto and Lisbon, and SWISS will be the only airline operating a weekly nonstop flight to Ponta Delgada in the Azores.
All tickets booked by May 31, 2021 are eligible for unlimited rebooking free of charge and one free rebooking thereafter. The new SWISS destinations from Zurich are now bookable and new destinations from Geneva will be available for booking in the beginning of March.
Source: Swiss International Air Lines